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Re: The History of the 32nd Pick in the NFL Draft

Two of the last twelve 32nd picks are Hall of Famers. That's not bad. Unfortunately, a lot of the others have sucked. Note, though, that it seems like the quality of these picks has definitely improved of late.

Re: The History of the 32nd Pick in the NFL Draft

David Wilson- good probability of being a very useful NFL back. At best, easily justifies the pick. At worst, probably still a productive player given his versatility.

Sherrod- I was amazed that Sherrod lasted all the way to pick 32. He seemed like a 10 year starter type. He's only played 5 games (0 starts) in two years.

Patrick Robinson- might be the worst starting CB in football.

Hood- solid D-lineman. Probably not a pro bowler, but a solid NFL starter.

Merling- big bust

Anthony Gonzalez- Despite having Peyton Manning throwing him the football, he caught less than 100 NFL passes. Injuries are more responsible for that than ability, but it was still an awful pick.

Kiwanuka- good pick.

Mankins- likely Hall of Famer

Watson- productive TE. Still in league. However, if you draft a TE in the first round, you'd hope they have more than 3700 receiving yards in 9 years.

Brayton- not a total bust, since he played in 140 NFL games and started over 90, but when you draft a DE in the first round, you hope for more than 17 sacks over a career.

Brees- first ballot hall of famer.

Johnson, Northcut, Pathon- none of them were massive busts, but none of them were particularly good either. All three caught between 3500-4900 yards a piece. You hope for more with your first round pick. I never considered Mark Clayton a bust, so I don't consider any of these three in that category either.

The four picks from 94-97 were all busts. Mahlum, Davis, and McElroy all were in the NFL for less than 3 years. Newsome was supposed to be a bigtime player in Green Bay and was a disappointment, although he did manage to start on and off for them for about 4 years. He was a small bust. The other 3 were enormous Kindle-sized busts.

Re: The History of the 32nd Pick in the NFL Draft

Originally Posted by LukeDaniel

Two of the last twelve 32nd picks are Hall of Famers. That's not bad. Unfortunately, a lot of the others have sucked. Note, though, that it seems like the quality of these picks has definitely improved of late.

I think that it's also important to note which of those picks were when the league had 31 teams, and when it had 32 teams. It's a pretty big distinction to note that a player was the 1st pick of the 2nd round, or the last pick of the first round. This also includes if a high with a high pick trades up to 32.

This is important to note because a player going to the team that was the worst in the league the previous season is going to have a much different career than if he was going to the Super Bowl champions. Both have their pros and cons. He might get more playing time at the bad team, but he also might be overwhelmed, and discouraged being on a bad team.

Re: The History of the 32nd Pick in the NFL Draft

If we were basing off this alone id say trade out but the difference is were drafting and our FO is better than these teams. we followed the SB with Todd Heap as the last pick of the 1st. were better at drafting than most teams, so that would hold true over this as well.

Re: The History of the 32nd Pick in the NFL Draft

I know it is not quite the same, but if you look pre-1995 at final pick of the 1st round selections (when there were fewer than 32), there were some decent picks there, too - Derrick Alexander, George Teague, Darryl Williams, Rob Moore, Neal Anderson, to name a few.

Re: The History of the 32nd Pick in the NFL Draft

In addition to Heap, Ozzie got Hartwell, Rabach and Baxter - a pretty good haul for drafting last. Heap and Hartwell alone kept the Ravens winning for years but teams are starting to catch up now as we saw last year. DeCosta even said we had to manufacture runs with guys like Bernard Pierce from little Temple and Gino who will take Birk's place from little Delaware. Pierce gives the Ravens the best 1-2 RB punch in the NFL and all that after Oz
got Upshaw from the national championship team at Alabama. Then there's the project
Streeter who may or may not be really good some day. I'm betting he will be good.

Someone like Cyprien or Elam will fall to Ozzie this year too. If not, he'll trade down for extra picks like he did with Pitta and Dickson who just won the SB for
him.